[BLANK_AUDIO] [MUSIC] You're looking at one of my characters, Tolkienhorn, lead the members of the class up the hill from the old mill in Hobbington. To Bag End where Frodo lives in the Hobbit hole Bilbo left to him when Bilbo disappeared, the night of his eleventy-first birthday party. Here we are at Frodo's house. You've seen the inside a couple of times before, but in this session, we're going to compare how the house is depicted in the novel, movie, and game. Tolkien, actually tells us, very little about Frodo's house in the Fellowship of the Ring. There's more detail in the Hobbit of course, if you remember that older story. The movie however, is a visual medium and Peter Jackson clearly relishes showing us how his set designer, as imagined Frodo's overstuffed interior. Notice how the camera lingers lovingly over each quaint item of furniture, in the Hobbit hole. [MUSIC] We can learn several things from this brief clip. >> The Third Age of this world. >> You hear Bilbo speaking in the voice over. He's beginning work on his book. It's a nice way to remind us of Bilbo's adventures from years ago, as background to the new adventures that are about to befall our protagonist, Frodo. It also, illustrates something we discussed last week. The way one medium, can remediate another older medium. Here you have a movie, dramatizing an author, in the act of writing a book. The more recent medium film, gestures toward the antiquity of writing as a medium, by having Bilbo employ an ink pot and quill. He has lovely, old-fashioned handwriting, doesn't he? And his script bears strange archaic, markings over some of the letters. As our fellowship runs from room to room exploring Frodo's house, I want you to notice one thing in particular. The house is largely devoid of narrative interest. There is a certain pleasure in seeing how the game designers have attempted to remediate this setting. From the boxes you see stacked in the corners, you realize that you are visiting, after Frodo has left. Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, is in the process of moving in, and you can see her standing outside, on the doorstep. But even given the fact that no one is living there at the moment. The house, is disappointingly [SOUND] static. You want to have something happen in the house. You have dreamed about this iconic spot for years, and when you finally [SOUND] get there. You feel a real sense of anti-climax, [SOUND] or at least I do. That's even more true of the end, of the Prancing Pony. We visited the Prancing Pony in our first weeks class. When we met Strider there, to begin book one, of the Epic Quest Line. It's worth returning today, to demonstrate how, undramatic it is. We find the game events that take place in The Prancing Pony are not really, very exciting at all. You pick up a quest or two, and you have the fun of exploring. [LAUGH]. >> But to have anything occur during your visit, you have to accept a quest from Strider, and zone into an instance located elsewhere. This may be one reason the game designer's chose to set your adventures, in the weeks after Frodo and his companions have left Bree. The fact that you are not, reenacting the events of Frodo's story though, does not mean that the game fails to mediate the world Tolkien imaged. That's a crucial distinction. Remediation, draws our attention to the change in media, not to the content of the two works. Let's look at how the movie handles the events at the end. The film changes things around a bit from the book. But we're not interested in whether the film is faithful to the novel, but in how the film achieves it's own dramatic goals. As you watch these clips from the film, observe how the directors control the camera, manages your understanding of the visual space of the setting. How a Hobbit height camera angle, contributes to the setting of the mood. The men are tall and intimidating from the perspective of, Frodo and his friends. And how quick shots that depart from the main point of view, establish a larger mise-en-scene, which, when combined with the confused hub hub of voices is almost, overwhelming to our four, rain soaked hobbits. Barnabas Butterbur we see, is a bit of a fool. Well meaning, but forgetful. And, his failure to remember Gandalf's message for the travelers, causes, great mischief. It's darker in this scene, than I visualized the Prancing Pony being, when I read the novel. But I like this vision of the place, better than the somewhat, vapid, largely empty room in the game. In the film, the room is full of Ruffians, one of whom we guess is Bill Ferny, the man who alerts the black riders, to Frodo's presence in Bree. The setting's one we've encountered before in other films. The rough, carousing men, swilling their beers, create a dark Shakespearean ambience. These are hard, flitting men, not at all like the gossipy hobbits we saw drinking at the end back in the Shire. There's a mysterious figure named Strider over in the corner. The glow of his pipe is and effective cinematic touch, revealing just enough of his face to be threatening. While highlighting the concern in his watchful eyes, at the same time. But as Merry and Pippin grow more at ease. And how they unwind. Hobbits, are fun loving creatures. Fond of their beer and pipe weed and a good song. The scene has one of my favorite moment of comedy, when Pippin says, it comes in pints? I can't tell you how many times someone in my family has repeated that line, when having a mug of ale. The Hobbits' love of a good story, reveals that Frodo Baggins is traveling under the pseudonym, of Mr. Underhill. In the book, the Hobbits' love of song and dance causes Frodo, to make a much more disastrous error. To distract the listeners from Pippin's revelation of his real name. Frodo stands on a table to sing, but he gets so caught up in his performance, that he falls, tumbling off the table, and the ring, slips on to his finger almost, as if it had a will of its own. Here's how the book describes it. Frodo, capers about on the table, and when he came a second time to, The Cow Jumped Over the Moon, he leaped in the air, much too vigorously, for he came down, bang, into a tray full of mugs, and slipped and rolled off the table with a crash, clatter, and bump. The audience all opened their mouths wide for laughter, and stopped short in gaping silence. For the singer, disappeared, he simply vanished as if he had gone slap through the floor without leaving a hole. This is not exactly how the episode occurs, in the movie. The movie keeps its focus on Pippin's foolishness, and does not let its hero Frodo, get sucked into the merriment. Instead, the film sustains the dark, anxious tone all the way through the night. We get no glimpse, of the hobbits' dancing, or singing. The fun-loving side of the Hobbits has been moved earlier, to a scene in the Green Dragon Pub back in the Shire. Sustaining this single dark mood shows good judgement on the film's part, for it works to clarify the role of each Hobbit, and builds momentum toward the night's climactic attack by the Black Riders. But it does simplify our sense, of Frodo's character. If some viewers, tire of Frodo's ever growing torment under the burden of the ring in the next two films, the process begins here, an agonized look on Frodo's face as he falls. From here, events move rapidly. The Hobbits are hustled to a private room, and there they learn that Strider is almost certainly, their only hope of survival. The final dramatic act of this complex cinematic scene, that terrifying specter of the Black Riders plunging their swords down into the beds. Where they, and you, the audience, think the Hobbit's are sleeping. What an effective way to remediate Tolkien's novel. [MUSIC]
